Matt Damon reveals Manchester by the Sea’s original ending was ‘too expensive’

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Matt Damon reveals Manchester by the Sea’s original ending was ‘too expensive’

Matt Damon admits the original ending for ‘Manchester by the Sea’ had to be scrapped because it was too expensive.

The Hollywood star served as a producer on the critically acclaimed drama film – which tells the story of a man whose brother dies and he’s entrusted with looking after his nephew – but Matt has admitted that the movie’s shoot didn’t quite go according to plan.

He shared: "I love ‘Manchester’, I’m incredibly proud of it, but Kenny [Lonergan, the writer] had an ending – there was this scene where they were on the boat that the whole movie’s kind of about, and it was a flashback to before Casey [Affleck’s] kids had died, before his brother had died, when he was still married to Michelle [Williams], and they were all on this boat and they were whale watching.

"It’s this incredible moment of joy and you see this family all together and then these whales start breaching out of the water."

Matt, 48, explained that because of budget restraints, it simply wasn’t possible to bring their ambition to reality.

He told the Bill Simmons Podcast: "You needed [a] f***ing drone cam. I mean, it was one day of shooting and you gotta get lucky with the whales, but either way we could’ve figured that out.

"It was this epic [scene], so as the camera pulls back as this family is experiencing this incredible joy – and you know it’s about to go horribly wrong for them – the camera’s pulling up, up, up and it reveals all of these other boats all around it, and it’s all of these other families watching these whales and it’s like this is one little story in this sea of stories.

"It was epic and it was beautiful and it tied the whole thing together, and we ran out of money. It was like, ‘f**k.’"